


The West Wing Deep Dive: Episode 2.17, the Missing Episode.

by ptriverson



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-10-01 19:49:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20385475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ptriverson/pseuds/ptriverson
Summary: What REALLY happened to the famous, never-screened, believed-to- be- missing episode from The West Wing, season 2?Here, Entertainment Weekly interviews cast and crew of the show, to recreate exactly what went wrong- and why it's still too hot to be screened...





	The West Wing Deep Dive: Episode 2.17, the Missing Episode.

Entertainment Weekly 

West Wing 2.17 « The Wind in the Barley» 

There has been much speculation down the years- not least on West Wing Weekly, the podcast headed up by Joshua Malina- as to the whereabouts of infamous unaired episode 2.17, The Wind in the Barley, which was written in to the schedules, then never appeared. 

At the time, Aaron Sorkin, the showrunner, simply muttered that they couldn’t get clearance from NBC to show it, that it went against their guidelines, and he was too furious to cut it, but it couldn’t get shown. Rumoured rough cuts circulated; scripts were held on lockdown (the few that were distributed in the first place) and no-one has ever spoken about it- until now. 

Nearly twenty years on from the non-broadcast episode, here at Entertainment Weekly we have, at last, the full story, now the NDAs have run their course and all the participants are finally willing to talk. 

Buckle up.

Janel Moloney, actor : it was all my fault, really. I only wanted a holiday and they rostered me out for a little bit.

Aaron Sorkin, showrunner : we just wanted to cool down the whole Josh/ Donna thing after Noel. It was moving a little fast. And we had Josh in recovery after he’d been shot, but we thought he needed healed, properly healed, you know. Coming back to life. And, I really wanted… well. I REALLY wanted…

Bradley Whitford, actor : I think Aaron and Thomas just really wanted to shoot some porn. (Laughs). 

AS : I mean, we had death, we had work, we had all these huge things happening in the show, but you know, man, nobody ever got laid. And this was just when HBO was starting up. And I had to watch : they let those guys do *anything*. Swearing, full frontal, the works. I was jealous I guess. Also, we had an agricultural story, and I wanted to make it a bit more interesting. Farming, man. So, yeah : a sex scene. 

Maread O’ Dowell, actor/ vet : I had absolutely no interest in acting. I grew up in Dublin, but my dad was from California. I’d gotten a scholarship to UCLA, and I got tapped for modelling in Santa Monica, because of my hair, really. Any shoot there’d be like two blondes up front then the black girl and the redhead at the back, who was me, obviously, so we were always making up the numbers. It was boring as shit, but I didn’t care as the money was good and I was a student and needed the dough.

Then my agent called and asked if I’d done any acting, and I had a bit, at school, but I’d thought that was boring too. Sorry, I don’t want to sound snobbish. I’m a vet, I mean, I work with animals. That’s all I ever wanted to do. I was at veterinary school, specialising in equine medicine. Horses have been my whole life.

But I had the summer off and was meant to be interning in Northern California, then this came up and I showed up, 

AS: casting called me and said, ‘we got this girl you should take a look at’. 

Long pause.

Christ. She was… I mean, she was the real thing. Rita Hayworth, seriously. This incredible dark red hair. Milky white skin ; green eyes ; soft Irish accent. We hadn’t written the character as Irish at all.I rewrote the whole thing, just for her. 

MoD : It was really odd, the character seemed to have loads of things in common with me- she was Irish, she spoke gaelic, she sang. And they offered me a lot of money. So I said sure. I’d never seen the show. 

AS : So, the president is launching a new agricultural policy and he has to get it through committee- sounds pretty boring, right ? And we brought in this advisor to him, that was Maread. Colleen in the show. I think I was drinking a lot of Irish whiskey at the time (laughs). And Josh didn’t like her, that was the deal because she’s smart and a bit haughty, and being smart and haughty was pretty much his deal.

MoD : I remember I had to pick him up in a right hand drive, you know, like a British car. And he gets in the wrong side of it. Then he pretends he meant to and wants to drive it. Then he can’t drive a stick. The thing was Brad really couldn’t drive a stick. But nobody would believe he was not driving it badly enough. Then we just kept laughing which wasn’t meant to be what we were doing at all… I was meant to be kind of snotty and imperious. Which I’m not, really.

BW This isn’t meant to sound rude, not at all, but I didn’t really notice Maread at first. I mean, yeah, she was beautiful, but they’re all beautiful, know what I mean? I just meet a lot of young actresses. Well, I did then. Well, I do now but they’re all auditioning to play my daughter. Hey can we change the subject already ? laughs. 

All I mean was, I didn’t really notice her.

MoD : You have to remember, I was 22. I was a student. Brad… this absolutely gorgeous older guy was… I mean everyone was nice to me on set, but he was just *so* nice. So kind and so funny and hot. And of course he was a really good actor and he was acting all day that he was totally in love with me. And I’m not really an actress. 

So yeah, of *course* I fell in love with him- well, had a big crush on him I suppose you would say. How could I not ? 

Oh yeah, I was *crazy* about Brad. 

AS : Hang on, let me remember what the episode was *meant* to be about. It’s so long ago. So the set up of the episode is, the White House is launching a new Agricultural policy, and it’s boring, and nobody but nobody knows anything about farming- Richard (Richard Schiff, who played Toby) was the funniest on this, you can imagine. Him and Allison (Allison Janney, who played White House press secretary CJ Cregg) getting snooty about farmers, so the deal is of course the President gets mad and hauls them all out to a farm to show them what the earth is really about- he’s only pretending, he doesn’t know either, he’s a latin scholar for fuck’s sake. But they learn a huge thing about pollination and amazing plants and birds and bees and yada yada yada. And the B story is, after he got shot, and after Noel, with the counsellor and all that, Josh is coming back to life after the winter, like the plants. 

And obviously that’s where we ran into all the trouble. 

Norrie: Hi, yeah, my. Names Norrie Charles and I handle compliance. So I kind of negotiate between the network and production office… what we can say, what words we can use, what we can show and so on. It changes all the time. Back in the 90s you could say damn once , but shit not at all, that kind of thing. 

Aaron always wrote clean, actually, he thought writing dirty was too easy, you know, for the effect of it. And we were mostly set in an office. I mean, I started out working on Dynasty. That was always a struggle. But normally we didn’t have many compliance issues. Until 2.17.

AS: I had Norrie in ; we’ve always got on. And I told her, just ask them. What can we do. How much can we show ? Because… I think this is important. It’s not titillating- well, not just titillating. It’s about characters. They eat, they sleep, they work, they f**k, you know ? And I wanted to show it. 

NC : It was literally the most difficult job of my life. Can we move this sheet ? Can we show movement ? Can we show the top of a breast ? How much movement can we have ? And Aaron is pushing, pushing pushing, y’know. 

*

BW : so, anyway … I didn’t really notice Maread until the song.

AS: Oh my God, the song. The idea was to allow Josh to listen to music again... 

Allison Janney, actor : the only thing I remember about that entire episode- I’m barely in it- was that beautiful song. It’s why we did the Jackal a year later.

MoD : I was so cross about that fecking song. 

The whole joke was I spoke another language and Josh had me down as an Irish spy, so when they wanted me to sing in english, I was like, meh. Although it was odd ; with everyone dressed up on the fancy set, it did feel like the closest I’d get to, you know, singing in the actual White House. This was in the days when doing that would be an honour. 

AS : You know I ended up taking it to rehab, that song. It kept me going. I don’t think I’ve heard anything more beautiful. (Sings) ‘If I had stopped to listen once or twice/ if I had closed my mouth and opened my eyes’

BW : she took the roof off the place, but she didn’t even sing loud. It was like a soft whisper. It made the hair rise on the back of your neck. I saw a cameraman cry and they NEVER cry. I didn’t even know they had the ducts. Anyway. I noticed her then. 

*

AS: So. We’ve done the build up. Josh and Colleen, she’s super smart and ignores him, he’s going nuts for her, then she sings and it’s awesome, then she’s lonely and miserable, that’s where we are for shooting : the big day comes, beautiful Irish girl and Josh get it on, fully get it on, most graphic thing on network tv, huge ratings killer, we’d planned a closed set obviously, everything quiet, the works. Brad didn’t care, he’s a pro.

BW :… holy shit, of course I cared ! It’s awful ! They give you a pouch, man. It’s grim. 

AS : …and I sat down with Maread, I knew she was young and inexperienced

MoD: I grew up on a farm and I’m a horse vet that works with bloodlines, and I’d been a model in LA. So I’m not quite sure what he thought I didn’t understand about the situation. 

AS : Thomas (Thomas Schlamme, unit director) shot the whole thing on location…I didn’t want any of the studio suits « dropping in », and we snuck off to DC. 

BW: It was a weird thing : we did the exteriors in the park then entered a building in Georgetown and shot the scene in that building. Can I tell you : that never happens. 

MoD: That was so weird. When we went to D.C. I lost track entirely of what was real and what wasn’t

TS We shot it in sequence, which we never do normally, but with something like this… it just made sense. They met in the park, she’s jogging, she twists her ankle, he has to invite her back…I didn’t want anyone in there, if they’d let me hold the camera, I’d have done that too. 

MoD : this is where my memory gets a little hazy. It’s so long ago. All I can tell you is, I can’t remember what was mean to happen to be filmed and what was just filmed. I forgot the cameras completely. You know when people are on those reality shows and they say they forgot the cameras were there, and you think, don’t be ridiculous…

Pauses

Okay. So. We were in the apartment. There’s a moment, he’s putting ice on my ankle, then I unbuttoned his shirt ; there was a vest under it, and I had to pull it up. 

BW : I did, very much feel like… yes. They wanted me to play awkward, with the bullet wound, and by this stage I was indeed very awkard around her, so I guess that panned out...

MoD : they did a really good job, make up. Too good. I had to kiss the bullethole, that was the deal. Like he was still traumatised by it, and I had to… you know. I knelt down.

BW. Then she knelt down. Yeah. Christ. That hair fanned over her shoulders…

MoD : I really wanted to kiss him. I started there, in his chest and.. moved down. Slowly. He smelled… God, he smelled really good. REALLY good. I just… it was like something else took over. Instinct…

BW. Then I had to pull her back up again, kiss her. I don’t… oh God. She just. She smelled amazing. We never did a chemistry read ; it was like she already ticked so many boxes, they just cast her. But. Well. Maybe it’s just as well. And the table read… we’d really glossed over this part. Ha. But Jesus Christ... 

AS: We knew they couldn’t show too much, so once they’d finished kissing we cut to to them down under the sheet. 

BW : I knew as soon as we got under that sheet, this was going to be the most difficult job… she was just so incredibly beautiful. Her skin was like cream and she was so luscious and…

MoD : My nipples were absolute points. My breasts were so tight I could barely keep my own hands off them. Just lying there next to him, waiting for them to tell us what to do. I couldn’t breathe. 

BW : I mean, normally it’s a little awkward, but I wasn’t new to it, it’s just acting. But this was something different altogether. This was- I couldn’t even look at her. 

MoD : our hands touched, just a little under the sheet. Even that ; it felt like electricity. It was so strange ; suddenly we were holding hands. It felt important ; like I was telling him, it’s okay. I feel it. If you feel it too, that’s alright. 

And then he had to get on top of me.

BW : I didn’t mean it, but I couldn’t help it. It had, I promise, never happened before. 

MoD : He was like an iron bar.

BW. Every pulse, every flutter I could feel her ; like a quivering butterfly, or an angel’s wings ; the lightest of moves, of breaths, pulsing beneath me ; I’ve never been so hard. I felt like a teenager. I apologised, of course. 

MoD I told him it was okay. It was more than okay. I wanted him to ram it, to push, to get violent even ; but we couldn’t. We were to be sure in a room full of people We couldn’t do anything, not even the thing we were meant to be doing

BW oh the color of her skin ; she was bright, bright red. 

MoD Just the tiniest of movements against him sent me absolutely crazy : I hadn’t the faintest idea what was happening to me, what he did to me. 

BW it was nothing, the lightest of touches, and it was utterly unbearable. It was torture.

MoD I needed- Christ, it wasn’t like normal sex. I couldn’t get him inside me or thrust or move my hips or scream out loud, everything my body was desperate to do. Nothing. We had to be so quiet ; we were surrounded by a cameraman ; a sound man picking up every breath in my body ; every single move or rustle we made. We couldn’t do anything at all. But there he was, lying on top of me ; his cock like solid steel against me and me incapable of doing anything about it. I’ve never been more turned on in my life ; never so desperate, every sinew in me screaming with need ; trapped beneath him, both of us- and I looked at it, I could see him- fighting it so desperately. 

Knowing that I couldn’t, I absolutely couldn’t fuck him the way I wanted to ; that I couldn’t let go, that I couldn’t come in this room with four other people in it ; that I was meant to be a professional. 

I rubbed myself against him then, just a little, the tiniest movement. I couldn’t rub hard, and I felt a quickly stifled groan deep down from him, still, lying prone above me. I felt his strong shoulders underneath my hands ; he was sweating. We both were. I looked up at him, still, just faintly faintly, desperately trying to rub myself against him, just a tiny bit, and as soon as he saw me he shut his eyes, as if he could get away from the reality of the situation ; as if it would be better if he couldn’t see me ; but I could feel him, so hard ; just, just about in reach, and as we both paused, trying not to make a sound, I could feel every single pulse of him, even as the director made everything slightly worse and called action. 

It was the sweetest purest agony I’ve ever felt

BW Oh Christ, I was so terrified of moving, terrified of everything. I felt like a teenager again. I couldn’t look at her. Her skin was so pale, she had this great big tellatale blush spreading right across her chest, and all I could do was cover it up. I put my weight on my arms to try and lift myself away but realised immediately I couldn’t hold it ; I was trembling too hard. I was a teenager ; a virgin again, it was overwhelming. Just the tiniest, most feathery of touches. 

MoD I couldn’t tell you what we were supposed to be doing or what the choreography fo teh scene was. I couldn’t tell you anything.The world had turned into a tiny pinpoint ; the centre of the universe where our bodies touched a centred tiny spot that meant anything at all and everything else could go to hell. 

BW I opened my eyes, and she was sweating, hard and I could see the vein pulse on that pure white skin and jeez, the surge it gave me, like an electric shock, and then when she saw me looking at her…

MoD : I couldn’t help it, then. I tried to stop it, I tried to fight myself coming, tried to hold on to control, but I couldn’t. With nothing, barely a flicker, just the tiniest brush of my rampant clit against his steely cock I couldn’t hold it back : I felt it start in me, every single extremity of my body ; the extraordinary heat and pleasure starting to pulse through me

BW It was like throwing myself on an unexploded bomb. I covered her completely…

MoD …to feel him, pressed up against me, finally, all of him, took it to a different level altogether and I couldn’t breathe…

BW And I kissed her, which was in the script, just to stop the screams I could see were about to come out of her mouth ; the way her hips were trying to lift in the air. I tried to squash he down

MoD being held down even as the incredible waves of my orgasm were pushing through me made the entire thing even more intense ; being crushed, by this powerful body, feeling this rock hard cock on my clit… I was completely delirious…

BW She was crazy trying to twist and push beneath me but I held her stock still, as I tried to calm her down, but it was as if she surrounded me ; her scent, her skin, the feel of her ; as I kissed her I became completely and utterly immersed and I haven’t done this- God, in years, like a teenager in the back of a car, but the force of it. I just blasted ; furiously hard, repeatedly, in the confines of that tight litle jock strap they’d given me ; I buried my head in her shoulder as it burst out of me. With a force I’ve never known. She clung to me like we’d been shipwrecked. 

MoD I looked into his eyes ; we were both still spasming and jerking and astonished. We just looked at each other. And then..

BW Oh Christ, and then Thomas very quietly said, ‘uh, cut ?’

MoD : any other time we’d have laughed, anyone would, but it was… it was just so intense, you have to understand…

BW : I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to. But yeah, in retrospect it was funny. He said,

MoD : « Okay, could you do it again but with a bit more passion this time » laughs.

TS : yeah, yeah. They looked stilted and weird- it didn’t look like movie sex at all, which I guess ought to have given me a clue- and I was three feet away, not two inches. Let me tell you, the sound guy was going bananas. 

BW : I’d just had the most shattering sexual experience of my life and apparently it hadn’t been remotely dramatically interesting

MoD : I couldn’t help thinking that there were possibly a few men in that room, Brad obviously excepted, that hadn't witnessed a lot of real female orgasms

TS: We tried to set up again it for after lunch… we only had the location scheduled for a day

MoD : the second time they ran it , Jesus

BW : it was worse

TS: okay, *that* time I noticed 

MoD I just remember they’d changed the sheets…

BW: I had an assistant on set and I never quite knew what they were for but on this occasion I just went, ‘change the sheets’… thanks again Kamal

MoD well, this time…

BW Christ, I thought it’d be over, like I’d have gotten it over my system. I spent the down time in the shower. Then I saw the cloud of red hair, smelled her body close again…Jesus

MoD I couldn’t stand it any more. I actually reached down and untied his stupid damn thong

BW. The second thong of the day. Again, thank you Kamal

MoD I thought the spell would be broken 

BW: it was worse

MoD : Christ it was worse

TS: We were trying for a shot that was two people making love, acceptable for a network audience

MoD : he just about got it inside me

BW: We just…oh, so slowly, inch by inch…

MoD : it was so slow, that nobody would see us. And so delicious, it had to be so painstaking, so deeply painful, to stop anyone seeing us. But omg, to feel him. To feel him, just a bit, inside….the ache was so strong, so deep, and then further and further in. We still weren't moving. I tried to keep quiet, that time, with just the gentlest pushing: I didn’t want to come, neither did he, but it was forced out of me; the longest, slowest orgasm I ever had. Jesus. The tears were dripping down the side of my face.

BW I think that time we both cried

TS : Well, of course I had to cut it. They wouldn’t stop fucking.

AS: I loved it. I mean… I thought we could make something out of it. I mean, obviously, watching the rushes wasn’t easy

AJ : I wasn’t in any of the scenes, but I had some ADR when I was supposed to call, you know, afterwards to get hold of Josh and the sound recordists was like, huh, just as well you weren’t live, and then it turned out both the actors were asleep, which I remember thinking was kind of odd, but, you know, adorable. 

BW. No, I don’t feel remotely guilty about it, why should I ? It was an extraordinary, exceptional physical response between two people. We might as well have had to hold back a sneeze. It wasn’t like we ran off into the sunset afterwards.

MoD Are you KIDDING me ? It was wonderful. It was great. I decided then, that acting wasn’t going to get any more fun than that (laughs). And LA was just grim after DC, and it’s not often people say it that way round. So I went back and finished my degree, and now I’m a farrier in Colorado, with a family. I love my life. So in a funny way, it changed everything. 

BW. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life, and she was one of the most glorious women I ever met. I just didn’t really want to watch it on national television, that’s all. Can we wrap this up? 

NC there wasn’t a single version of it that would have gotten through compliance, it’s patently obvious, every single frame of it. You couldn’t even have had a shot of their faces. 

TS : we thought, maybe just take bits out, focus on different parts of their bodies, but nothing worked at all, we were meant to be cutting in… and I couldn’t get it to work and couldn’t get it to work and of course Brad came and begged me not to do it

BW : that’s not true, I wouldn’t tell a director not to do anything, even if I had that power, which *obviously* I don’t. 

Although, I might have mentioned that I assumed it wouldn’t be that bad. I assumed that they’d leave a few freeze frames and a rumpled sheet or something suggestive. Nothing we actually shot. 

AS : Fuck that, man. Fuck that. I cut one. Fuck Norrie and fuck NBC. I wanted it how I’d cut it together. I left everything in. It was beautiful. Martin’s giving a big speech on the farm, and the world is opening up and the sun is streaming in the window and the two of them, clearly making love, are the most beautiful tender, natural thing you’ve seen in your life. 

And a bunch of network prudes couldn’t see that. Couldn’t see it. And the lawyers, man. The lawyers came running, black- suited as priests. 

And now look where we are. Filthy porn on the phone your 11 year old takes to school. Force, and choking, and stuff I hadn’t even heard of, even as an adult. The most degrading sex acts you can possibly imagine everywhere around and that’s all totally normal and okay these days, with a pussy- grabber- in- chief. 

And we couldn’t even screen one of the most beautiful things you ever saw. 

So yeah. Hollywood fucked itself in the end. And I’m sorry for it. And that’s the story of 2.17.


End file.
